wn 



.P3 K3 



0^ ^^2J^.% ,-ii ^. 




^- " " .^" o e. o . '^^ * " <<^'^ , t ' . ^ <J> 




■-^^ ^-^ o'^'^'^^^lL^'- ^?-^ <-^ 



^0' 




"oV 





^ 







4 o 










.0' 



%ii 



.0' 
















<^^^ 





<A yy- <"©• 



^^-n^ 














^0' 



5°,^ 




o " o 



'oK 



•^0^ 







^^^^'^• 






















SAMUEL SLATER 

FATHER OF THE COTTON INDUSTRY IN AMERICA 









JAN - 19U 



"T 



' >j>->\j^crvj( VJL . 




CITY OF PAWTUCKEZ R. L 
September tstt t9t0. 



De:ar Sir — It may interest you to know that the City of 
•Pawtucket, R. L, is A HIVE OF DIVERSIFIED INDUST- 
RIES, with a colony of over 25,000 men, women and 
youths, busy as bees extracting every week nearly a quarter 
of a million dollars as wages. Pawtucket's reputation as a city 
of diversified industries is world-wide. It is not the largest 
city in the world, neither is it the richest, but there is no city 
on earth of its size which produces such a variety of manu- 
factured articles. 

Within a radius of three miles of Main street square, the 
centre of Pawtucket, which includes a part of Central Falls, 
Cumberland, Lincoln, Seekonk, and Phillipsdale there are fac- 
tories employing over 40,000 people. 

Pawtucket's history as an industrial community is unique 
and unparalelled in the annals of civic development in America. 
It became a manufacturing centre over 250 years ago when 
Joseph Jenks, Jr., located here a few years after the landing of 
the Pilgrims at Plymouth. He began the manufacture of iron 
implements for household and agricultural uses. The Paw- 
tucket falls, with virgin forests surrounding it, from which 
charcoal could be made, and the bogs nearby with a fair grade 
of iron ore, served as a magnet to attract him. For years he 
prospered and then others started in the business, some making 
iron work for the ships that were built here. The Schooner 
Tyre which was constructed on the banks of the Pawtucket 



river sailed around the world in 1790, a remarkable feat in 
those days. David Wilkinson, a youthful mechanical genius of 
Pawtucket assisted by Elijah Ormsbee another youth, in 1792, 
built a twelve ton steamboat in which they made a trip of three 
and a half miles from Pawtucket to Providence. This was at 
least ten years before Robert Fulton operated a steamboat on 
the Hudson river, assisted by Daniel French, a Connecticut 
Yankee, who incidentally came here previously and was given 
permission to examine and make drafts of one of the first boats 
known to be operated by steam in America. 

President Madison at his second inauguration as Chief 
Executive of United States on March 4th, 1813, wore a suit of 
woolen cloth made in a Pawtucket factory. It was the first 
time a President or high public official had worn a suit of 
American made cloth, and the news was sent broadcast. When 
President Monroe was inaugurated for his first term in 1817, 
"following the example of his predecessor, the President wore 
for the occasion a suit of American made cloth from a Paw- 
tucket factory." In 1820, when Hon. N. R. Knight took his 
seat in the U. S. Senate, he wore a vest of material made by the 
Pawtucket Worsted Company, which was the first specimen of 
American made worsted shown in Washington and attracted 
considerable attention. President Adams in 1826 bought a 
beautiful lace dress in Pawtucket which took first prize at the 
R. I. State Fair. Pawtucket's industries were in the limelight 
in those days and have since attracted the attention of textile 
and mechanical men all over the world. 

During this era a fine class of mechanics developed here, 
and when Samuel Slater, "the father of cotton manufacture in 
America," came to Pawtucket in 1790, with the help of the 
David Wilkinson and Sylvanus Brown, he constructed the first 
successful cotton spinning machinery made in America. The 



Wilkinson, Brown, and Jenks families were remarkable me- 
chanical workers in those days and the foundations they laid 
for their descendants are still being built upon. Their fame as , 
skilled artisans travelled across the sea and early in the next 
century many of the best iron workers of England came to 
Pawtucket and settled. John Thorpe, a Pawtucket mechanic, 
invented the power loom in 1814, and Asa Arnold invented 
a differential motion for speeders and a machine for separating 
wool. Stephen Jenks made small arms for the Continental 
troops during the Revolution and in 1811 he took a contract 
from the Government to make 10,000 muskets, a big task at 
that time. The Wilkinsons were also makers of heavy presses 
used in New Bedford and Nantucket for pressing out sperm 
oil. In 1794 Oziel Wilkinson made the machinery used in the 
construction of a canal near the City of Boston, the patterns 
and castings being made at Pawtucket. He also made the first 
wind-gudgeons used in this country. In 1797, David Wilkin- 
son invented a gauge and sliding lathe, one of the most valua- 
ble mechanical contrivances ever produced. The only money 
he received from it at that time was ten dollars for the use of 
the patterns, but fifty years later the United States Congress 
deemed it so meritorious that it voted him a bonus of $10,000. 
From that time to the present, expert machine builders 
and textile operatives have made Pawtucket a ''Mecca." There 
are big iron and brass foundries here, some of the biggest 
machine shops in the country making textile machinery for all 
parts of the world, big cotton mills turning out miles of cloth, 
immense bleacheries and dye houses scattered about several 
sections of the city and here and there large and small fac- 
tories turning out all kinds of specialties. Among the largest 
concerns employing from 700 to 3,000 workers, are the Royal 
Weaving Company with the largest weave shed in the world, 



making the best grade of linings, the Lorraine Manufacturing 
Company making the finest cotton and worsted fabrics, the 
Coats Thread Company turning out a large part of the world's 
consumption of thread, the Union Wadding Company making 
cotton batting sold all over the world, the Howard & BuUough 
Machine Company, one of the largest manufacturers of cotton 
machinery in the world, the Narragansett Machine Company 
making gymnasium apparatus for use in all parts of the civil- 
ized world, Babcock color presses and machinery, the Hope 
Webbing Company with the largest narrow fabric plant in 
America, the Phillips Insulated Wire Company with the most 
modern copper wire rolling mill, the Goff Mills, where tons of 
mohair braid, plush and linings are made, the W. H. Haskell 
Company and the Pawtucket Manufacturing Company which 
make large quantities of bolts and nuts and the machinery for 
producing the same, and last but not least of the big concerns, 
the Potter & Johnston Machine Company, makers of automatic 
chucking and turning machinery, shapers and cotton machinery. 
The first named machines are considered the greatest factor in 
reducing the cost of production of component parts of auto- 
mobiles. Nearly every day shipments of their machines are 
made to foreign countries including China, Japan, Russia, and 
the countries of Europe. The company did a half million dol- 
lar business in France last year. The shop which. covers about 
ten acres of land is one of the most modern in the world. 

In addition to those already mentioned, which are leaders 
of their kind in the United States, there are about fifty more 
manufacturing establishments in the city that give employment 
to from 100 to 1,500 workers. Among them are the Sol- 
way Textile and Dyeing Company, makers of the Man- 
hattan shirtings, the Easton & Burnham Machine Company, 
who furnish an improved type of spindle for the mills of New 



England and the South; the Fales & Jenks Company, makers 
of spinning and twisting machinery, rotary pumps and fire 
hydrants; the United States Fnishing Company (Bunnell 
Branch), dyeing, bleaching and print works; the E. Jenckes 
Manufacturing Company, and the Hemphill Company, both 
concerns making knitting machines which are shipped all over 
the world, the former concern also makes wire goods ; the 
George H. Fuller Company manufactures immense quantities 
of jeweler's findings; the R. Bliss Manufacturing Company, 
makers of toys and woodenware; the Lebanon Mill Company, 
makers of knitted fabrics; the Pawtucket Foundry Company, 
who make drinking fountains for many of the big cities of 
America and also several articles used in the building trades ; 
the J. M. Carpenter Tap and Die Company, whose product is 
known the world over; the Lumb Knitting Company and the 
Sakonnet Knitting Company, manufacturers of women's un- 
derwear; the Smith Webbing Company, the Blackstone Web- 
bing Company, the Shannock Narrow Fabric Company, the 
Rhode Island Cardboard Company; the National Coated 
Paper Company, the Hope Paper Company, the J. S. 
Linton Paper Company, the Pawtucket Glazed Paper 
Company, the Linton Brothers Paper Company, the American 
Yarn Company, the Dexter Yarn Company, the Greene & 
Daniels Manufacturing Company and the Littlefield Manufac- 
turing Company, yarn makers ; the J. J. Kenyon Manufacturing 
Company, makers of braids tapes and laces; the Salisbury 
Company, makers of labels and shipping tags ; the J. W. Little 
Company, mill label and sample card printers ; the Adam Sut- 
cliffe Company, printers and lithographers; the Jenckes Knit- 
ting Company; the Mackenzie-Walton Seamless Wire and 
Tubing Company; the Metallic Shell and Tube Company, 
seamless tubing; the Co-Operative Seamless Wire Company; 



8 

the United Brush Company; the United Wire Supply Com- 
pany; the Hand Brewery; R. D. Mason Company, dyers and 
bleachers; Blodgett & Orswell Company, makers of glazed 
yarns and spool cotton ; Jenckes Spinning Company ; Tamarack 
Company, silk textiles; the Burgess Mills; the Slater Mills, 
cotton cloth; the Dempsey Bleachery; the Harrison Yarn and 
Dyeing Company; Pawtucket Evening Times, 23,000 circula- 
tion ; Chronicle Publishing Co., weekly ; Le Jean Baptiste Pub- 
lishing Company, French semi- weekly ; the Pawtucket Linotyp- 
ing Company, composition for printers, and the New England 
Automobile Journal Publishing Company, whose publication is 

one of the pioneer magazines devoted to the automobile trade. 
After enumerating the two score and ten big concerns 

above mentioned one would wonder if there was room for 
more, yet there is between sixty and seventy other manufac- 
turing establishments in the City of Pawtucket, employing 
from 25 to 100 workers. Among the number are the follow- 
ing: The French Hair Cloth Company, making cloth of horse 
hair imported from South America; the Atwood-Crawford 
Company, makers of all kinds of spools and fancy wood turn- 
ers; the Eastern Advertising Company, manufacturers of Art 
Calenders and embossed printing; Collyer Insulated Wire 
Company, makers of covered wires and cables; J. S. White 
Company, machinery castings; the Chase Brush Company; the 
Thayer Brush Company; the Pawtucket Hosiery Company; 
the Pawtucket Braided Fish Line Company; the Pawtucket 
Jewelry Company; the Pawtucket Warp Company; the Mon- 
crief Manufacturing Company, makers of the Moncrief rug 
rack, which is shipped all over United States ; the Sellew Ma- 
chine Company, makers of milling and shaping machinery; the 
Pawtucket Tape Company; the Pawtucket Knife and Saw 
Company; the Vienna Braid and Tape Company; the R. L 




LOOKING WEST FROM PAVVTUCKET CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 



Crucible Steel Company; the Pawtucket Brush Company; the 
Providence Braid Company, (Pawtucket branch) ; Narragan- 
sett Narrow Fabric Company ; the American Vending Ma- 
chine Company, which has automatic toilet paper, emergency 
owels and automatic ticket selling machines in nearly all of 
the railroad stations in America ; Columbia Braider Company ; 
the Crown Hair Cloth Company ; the Imperial Silk Mills ; the 
J. S. & W. E. Meehan Company, makers of silk glorias ; the 
William Hill Company, manufacturers of baby carriage robes, 
shawls and towels ; Excelsior Loom Reed Works ; Blackstone 
Reed and Harness Company, wire goods ; Blackstone Machine 
Company; Glencairn Alanufacturing Company, makers of shoe 
strings; Fred J. Bancroft, manufacturer of tennis racquets, 
polo sticks and wooden toys ; George W. Payne Company, 
builders of spoolers, winders and quillers ; Charles H. Luther 
Company, makers of cloth stretchers and thread dressers ; J. 
O. Draper Soap Works ; the Henry F. Jenks Company manu- 
facturers of small hardware and metal novelties ; Collins 
Brothers, cotton machinery ; Eagle Dye Works ; Nonpareil 
Thread Company; Fred J. Halliday, Jr., machinery pattern 
maker; Cole Brothers, makers of automatic spinning frame 
banding machines ; Pawtucket Paper Box Company ; J. N. Pol- 
sey Company, packing cases and boxes ; Reliable Manufactur- 
ing Company, threads and yarns; Shaker Thread Company; 
Collyer Machine Company, electrical and mechanical engineers ; 
the Pawtucket Dyeing and Bleaching Company ; the Berry 
Spring Bleachery; American Cotton Mills Company; the W. B. 
Cobb Company, jewelry manufacturers; Roberts Manufactur- 
ing Company, jewelry; Ohler Jewelry Company; Killam Clock 
Company, makers of "Banjo" and Mission clocks which are sold 
all over United States; Consolidated Car Fender Company, 
which makes street car fenders, universally used in America; 



lO 

Mclntyre Chemical Company; Boston Braiding Company; 
Jenkinson Brass Foundry ; McKenna Company, brass founders ; 
New England Machine and Electrical Company ; Mullen Broth- 
ers, electrical engineers; Gay Leather Company; Gardner 
Broom Factory; Lyons Delany Coffee and Spice Mills; Daw- 
son Corset Lace Company ; L. B. Darling Fertilizer Company ; 
John C. Culbert Company, metal refiners; Bucklin Belting 
Company ; J. T. Cottrell Company, mill work contractors ; Frank 
Tingley Company, office and store finishers ; Suter Loom Reed 
Company ; A. E. Tenney, mill machinists ; Ullrich Brush Com- 
pany ; Briggs Cotton and Paper Waste Company ; United Wire 
Supply Company; United Brush Company; Union Cooperage 
Company, and Berry Spring Lithia Water Company; R. 
L Electrical Works, and R. L Machinery Company. There 
are cigar factories, gas fixture manufacturers, mineral water 
companies, tin and sheet iron shops, wood turning factories 
and various other manufacturing concerns turnmg out products 
used locally. The hum of machinery in Pawtucket is as fam- 
iliar as the ticking of the ticker in Wall street. 

Pawtucket is constantly having new enterprises locate 
within its borders. During the past year three lace making 
concerns have begun operations, one the Caderas & Ozanne 
Company coming from Calais, France ; the Regina Lace Com- 
pany and the Seekonk Lace Company. The latter started with 
local capital. The machinery for the last two concerns was im- 
ported from Nottingham, England. The Pawtucket Lace Fin- 
ishing Company was also started during the past year. These 
concerns alone will give employment to nearly a thousand men 
and women who receive big wages. Pawtucket is now known 
as the 'iace making centre of America." The biggest lace 
making plant in the country today is the American Textile 
Company, which began operations in this city ten years ago, 



11 

and has grown rapidly. At the present time an addition is 
being constructed which will double the concern's capacity. 
The Seekonk Lace Company also started an addition, the work 
having begun before the paint was dry on their original mill. 
The lace making machines have been imported from England 
and France in the past, but it is expected that within another 
year some of the big shops of Pawtucket will be turning 
out machines of the latest design. That Pawtucket mechanical 
talent is capable of making as gpod machinery as either Eng- 
land or France is freely admitted by those men who have come 
here to start plants. Another lace manufacturing company is 
now being organized. 

Among the many thriving industries is the Flexible Veneer 
Company, which manufactures a paper veneer, imitating the 
most expensive wood veneers. It is used for many purposes, 
but largely for cabinet work and panel work in house finish. 
The cover of this booklet is a sample of one of the various 
wood patterns imitated. One of the chief reasons why new 
concerns locate here is the abundance of workers familiar with 
the construction and operation of machinery. 

Since its incorporation as a city in 1886, Pawtucket has 
had a strong, healthy, steady, growth. Owing to its diversity 
of industries, hard times and serious business depression are 
almost unknown here. When the curtailment in cotton produc- 
tion is in force, the machine shops are running, some of them 
night and day, turning out machinery for all kinds of work, 
especially for the automobile trade. For a city of over 51,000 
inhabitants and with surrounding towns of 75,000 more, who 
do their trading here, it is surprising to note so few unem- 
ployed about the streets. When the shop whistles blow at noon 
and night, the visitor is always impressed with the thousands 
of well dressed workers flowing out of the gates of the mills 



l2 

and shops. In the four banks of the city there Is over $12,000,- 
000 of their savings, meaning over $200 for every man, wo- 
man and child in the city, and in addition a very large number 
of the people own their own homes. The working people ot 
Pawtucket have an unexcelled means of obtaining a livelihood 
and receive more per capita, than workers in such cities as 
Lawrence, Lowell, Fall River, and New Bedford. They have 
advantages for their educational, spiritual and physical welfare, 
second to none in United States. 

With its score of modern brick eight and twelve room school 
houses, both public and parochial, caring for over 10,000 c'hil-- 
dren, evening schools of manual training and drawing for 
grown persons, Kinyon's Business College, a High School, a 
Boys' Club, a well patronized Public Library, a twelve page 
daily, a semi- weekly (French) and a weekly newspaper, its 
beautiful churches, Catholic and Protestant^ and its Y. M. C. 
A., Pawtucket's educational and spiritual advantages are un- 
surpassed. It has 300 acres of the finest park lands, to be found 
in New England, playgrounds scattered in all sections of the 
city, with the most approved forms of apparatus, a score of 
fields for baseball, football, bowling, cricket, golf and other 
athletic sports and a trotting track. Two rivers with half a 
hundred power boats, many canoes and racing shells and sev- 
eral theatres provide ample means for recreation. There are 
a large number of societies affiliated with the National and In- 
ternational organizations, including the Masons, Foresters, 
Odd Fellows, Knights of Columbus, and others. The Paw- 
tucket Business Men's Association with nearly 400 members 
and the Pawtucket Retail Merchants Association with a mem- 
bership of nearly 150 of the representative tradesmen of the 
city, both active bodies in the development of the munici- 
pality, and the To Kalon Club, which has recently built a club 



I 




LOOKING NORTH FROM PAWTUCKET CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 



13 

house costing over $50,000, show what a prominent place social 
intercourse takes in the life of Pawtucket people. 

The civic improvements are kept apace of the needs of the 
people, money being continually spent for the construction of 
new streets, sewers, schools, fire stations and other permanent 
improvements. The streets are kept clean, well lighted and 
policed. The municipal water works is second to none in the 
United States for quality of water, and good service, for 
domestic uses, mill supply and fire purposes. There are over 
;?80 miles of pipe, with an average pressure of 100 pounds to 
I le square inch. A new 15,000,000 gallon pumping engine has 
been recently installed and there are three other pumps of 
12,000,000 gallons. The Diamond Hill reservoir covers two 
Viundred and seventy acres and holds nearly a billion and a half 
gallons of water; by raising the dam ten feet, it would hold 
another billion. The Happy Hollow pond near the station 
holds 72,000,000 gallons, and the Stump Hill reservoir, 301 feet 
above tide- water, flows into the mains, giving plenty of 
pressure. There are over 90 miles of improved streets 
and 60 miles of sewers. The fire department is one of the best 
equipped in the country and the fire loss is exceedingly small. 
The area of the city is about nine square miles and nearly 
square in shape, with eleven main streets running to the busi- 
ness district like the spokes of a wheel, making a most con- 
venient layout. The trolley system is an excellent one, with 
cars from the suburban towns running through all the principal 
streets and with good transfer privileges. A new hospital has 
been recently opened that will equal any in New England. Gas 
mains and electric wires are in nearly every street and the 
people use both for cooking and lighting. A central steam 
heating plant heats nearly all the public buildings, store and 
office buildings, churches and residences in the centre of the 



14 

city. The long distance station of the American Telephone 
and Telegraph Company is located in Darlington, a suburb of 
Pawtucket, and direct connections are made so that people in 
Pawtucket are talking with persons in Jacksonville, Fla., or 
Omaha, Neb., nearly 2,500 miles away, when the occasion re- 
quires. There are over 2,000 telephones in the stores, shops, 
and homes of Pawtucket, which show that modern conven- 
iences are used in this hustling city. There are also two tele- 
graph offices, Western Union and Postal Telegraph. 

There are several advantages which commend the City of 
Pawtucket to the manufacturer beside the abundance of most 
efficient workers. There are two big freight depots, one on the 
east side of the city and the other on the west side. The main 
line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, 
between Boston and New York runs through the centre of the 
city, and there are two branch lines. A good tidewater harbor, 
which is the head of navigation in Rhode Island, comes well 
up into the city. It is now being developed extensively by the 
Federal Government and the State. The extension of the 
Grand Trunk Railroad from the Canadian north-west into 
Rhode Island is laid out to run through the west and south ends 
of Pawtucket to tidewater, opening up new sites for factories, 
and will give excellent shipping facilities to the western coun- 
try by rail, and the south by water. The Blackstone river, that 
wonderful stream which develops more horse-power than any 
other river in the world of equal watershed, runs through and 
reaches tidewater at Pawtucket. The Pawtucket Electric 
Company with three stations making current by coal and water 
falls is well prepared to furnish electricity to manufacturing 
concerns. Over 7,000 horse-power is now distributed to some 
of the large and many of the small factories. There is still 
room for a few more establishments, and some good manu- 



15 

facturing sites are available along the railroads and the river 
fronts. Pawtucket business men are always ready to invest 
in new enterprises with good prospects and otherwise materi- 
ally help new comers. 

All communications addressed to the mayor will receive 
attention* \ 

Respectfully yours, 

ROBERT A. KENYON, 

Mayor. 



o 
r 






2 ^ 



> 

H 

a 
o 

H 





D 18 1 



* O (K <'-' 












4 o^ 

1/ y<V <« 



o_ ^ 




^oV" 




.0^ 



-^0 
1 i 



^-^^^ 



•i 












^^-^^^ ^: 








^"^^ 




^"-^^^ 





.*iO^. 








,^^ "^^ 





O M O 






-^9^ 





> 



r ... 






j.°-n#-. 



!^ 








^y «^ o 1/ J5«. \N ♦ A > « 

J. LIBRARY BINOmO * © „ O ^ Jj '^ * • , i • aV C3 * © „ O ' 




'«„ .y 



